[ISEA2023] Poster: Eliane Zihlmann & Raffaele Grosjean — BATVISION: Empathise with a bat life

Poster Statement

Keywords: Change of perspective, Virtual Reality, Embodiment, Habitat Destruction, Experiential Learning, Real Time Interactive Experience, Edutainment, Immersive Media, Game Design,
Biomimicry

BATVISION is a playful Virtual Reality (VR) Experience that immerses the users in the bat’s world of perception and allows them to interactively experience the principle of echolocation. The aim is to strengthen the relationship with foreign species by seeing them as part of our symbiotic ecosystem and stepping into their shoes ourselves. For this, the VR glasses visualise the auditory image of the bat in a way that we can understand. Surrounded by complete darkness, the virtual world only becomes visible through one’s own shout. Also, the users have to flap their wings in order to navigate the virtual space and catch mosquitoes to survive the night as a bat. BATVISION uses immersive technologies to make knowledge not only comprehensible, but also tangible through our own bodies. In this way, the VR experience sensitises us to disappearing habitats, noise pollution and an animal species threatened from extinction.
www.batvision.ch    www.somebodyelse.ch